8/5/13

More than a thousand years of floods and the successive
lootings and pickings for other construction projects had left the once
spectacular mortuary temple of Amenhotep III little more than a pile of stones.
All that was left intact were the twin colossi, each 60’ tall, which
stood lonely guard at the entrance of the ruins. For the most part, the statues
were ignored. Compared to the remaining structures at the Theban acropolis, and
the temple complexes of Luxor and Karnak across the Nile, it was a rather
unremarkable eyesore.

And then, sometime around February 5th, 27 BC it
became remarkable again. A small earthquake struck Egypt. It did little damage
to the southern statue but it cut the northern twin off at the waist and left a
deep crack through its base. Soon after, the statue became… ”talkative.”

It didn’t always speak, but when it did, it would always be at
sunrise. And though it sounded more like the plucking of a lyre string than a
voice, word spread across the empire of the amazing vocal statue. Strabo,
Pausanias, and Pliny all attested to its wonder. By the time that Emperor Septimius Severus arrived in 199 AD, the statue already had over a hundred bits of Greek and Latin graffiti carved into it.

Severus had been advised to curry favor with the statue by his
wife, Julia Domna, the high-priestess of the temple of Elagabalus, the Syrian
sun-god. When it didn’t speak for him, he assumed the damaged condition of the
statue to be the reason. So he ordered his soldiers to “repair” it and five rows of stone blocks were stacked upon it. It’s been mute ever since.